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Genome-edited baby claim provokes international outcry
A Chinese scientist claims that he has helped make the world's first genome-edited babies — twin girls who were born this month. The announcement has provoked shock, and some outrage, among scientists around the world.
He Jiankui, a genome-editing researcher from the Southern University of Science and Technology of China in Shenzhen, says that he implanted into a woman an embryo that had been edited to disable the genetic pathway that allows a cell to be infected with HIV.
In a video posted to YouTube, He says the girls are healthy and now at home with their parents. Genome sequencing of their DNA has shown that the editing worked, and only altered the gene they targeted, he says.
The scientist's claims have not been verified through independent genome testing or published in a peer-reviewed journal. But, if true, the birth would represent a significant — and controversial — leap in the use of genome-editing. So far these tools have only be used in embryos for research, often to investigate the benefit of using them to eliminate disease-causing mutations from the human germline. But reports of off-target effects in some studies have raised significant safety concerns.
Documents posted on China's clinical trial registry show that He used the ubiquitous CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing tool to disable a gene called CCR5, which forms a protein that allows HIV to enter a cell. Genome-editing scientist Fyodor Urnov was asked to review documents that described DNA sequence analysis of human embryos and fetuses gene-edited at the CCR5 locus for an article in MIT Technology Review. "The data I reviewed are consistent with the fact that the editing has, in fact, taken place," says Urnov, from the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Seattle. But he says the only way to tell if the children's genomes have been edited is to independently test their DNA.
Also at STAT News:
The Chinese university where He is an associate professor issued a statement saying that it had been unaware of his research project and that He had been on leave without pay since February, Reuters reported. The work is a "serious violation of academic ethics and standards," Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen said in the statement. The university said it would immediately launch an investigation.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 26 2018, @05:43PM (4 children)
It would be plenty enough if the edited genome makes humans immune to many, if not all, diseases1. This hand-wringing of "ethicists" is similar to earlier prohibition to learn human body, then the mass refusal to vaccinate... when one man invents a better human, can you imagine how many medical specialists would love to have him hanged and quartered? Their welfare depends on having a steady stream of patients, after all. Just as an example, how much would you pay for a feature to grow your own replacement teeth? This already works in humans - but only once, and then some switch flips and the process stops.
[1] A. Strugatsky, B. Strugatsky, Inhabited Island [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Monday November 26 2018, @05:55PM (3 children)
The problem with patching vulnerabilities is that those same capabilities are often used by other features. With evolution expect this to be a *LOT* worse. But if the features are late developing, or subtle, it may be hard to tell what is broken.
E.g., one problem with iron is that there's no excretion mechanism, so it's easy to overdose. The obvious fix is to excrete it into the intestines, possibly in the bile fluids. Unfortunately, removing iron from an area is one way the body controls growth of microorganisms. Whoops! There was a reason there was no way to excrete it.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 26 2018, @06:07PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by khallow on Monday November 26 2018, @07:35PM
Bleeding.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday November 27 2018, @11:15PM
Another good example would be the natural genetic immunity to malaria caused by a minor alteration to the shape of a red blood cell, which seems like a wonderful development until you consider that inheriting the immunity from both parents causes sickle cell disease [wikipedia.org].
There's also the many inherited genetic immune disorders that we still don't fully understand and still can't cure. Anyone with an urge to fuck with the genetics behind the human immune system (or who doesn't see why it's an ethical minefield) should spend some time assisting a variety of people who have developed multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, or the many other severe genetic immune disorders.